


Intimacies of Print

by Rivestra



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: BAMF Q, BDSM, Claiming, Comfort, Coming Out, Conspiracy, Dom/sub Undertones, Epistolary, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Inspection, M/M, Mission Sex, Missionfic, Moving In Together, Oral Sex, Painplay, Q Has a Cat, Sensory Deprivation, Subspace, Whipping, earpiece kink, job trauma, slight furry, touch starved, washing/cleaning, wee!Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 10:23:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivestra/pseuds/Rivestra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I’d forgotten me, but there I was, in the palm of your hand.</i> A collection of private messages, emails, chats, articles, transcripts, alerts and introspections chronicling the growing intimacy between a Quartermaster and his agent during iced-in winter mission. Along the way, Bond outs them both at work, remotely rescues Q’s cat, invites Q to move in with him, is surprised to learn he’s got a strong submissive side, and makes it very difficult for Q to keep him alive, even while making absolutely no progress on his mission (and Q’s got quite enough to do on his own). Also, sometimes there are bad guys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [00Q Big Bang](http://00q-bb.livejournal.com/). Art is inline now, and [charlies-dragon](http://charlies-dragon.livejournal.com/)'s art post is [here.](http://dragons-horde.livejournal.com/21475.html)
> 
>  **Additional Warnings:** This story varies greatly in tone between sections. Thus, I find I need to warn for violence (beyond canon-typical), non-graphic unsafe BDSM, submissive themes, sensory deprivation, and serious dubcon (in another fandom, I might call it noncon, but 'in the line of duty' is big, confusing part of Bond's job description—watch your triggers)... in addition to what could possibly be defined as schmoop (well, tenderness and a fluffy flashback to Bond's fourth Christmas so...).
> 
>  **Many thanks to:** [snarkgoddess](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SnarkGoddess/works) and [varkelton](http://varkelton.livejournal.com) for beta duties and [charlies-dragon](http://charlies-dragon.livejournal.com/) for the Brit pick. Extra special thanks my husband, [snarkgoddess](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SnarkGoddess/works), [varkelton](http://varkelton.livejournal.com) and everybody else who had to listen to me waffle and whinge. This story did not birth easily, and, while I’m quite proud of it, I’m even more glad that my family and friends are still willing to talk to me.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** Written purely for fun; no profit or harm intended. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners.

\------------------------------  
////OMEGACRYPT TERMINAL INITIALIZATION COMPLETE: AUTHORIZED USER BOND, J IMPRINTED TO DEVICE \\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

Bugger this, Q.

I know I agreed to this, and your gadget seems simple enough to use, but I have no idea what you’d like me to write.

Can’t I send you a postcard of an iceberg instead? Or maybe a nice penguin?

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

I’m open to other suggestions, but you were as blank as I when we last talked, and I am emphatically _not_ open to three-plus months of you iced in and nothing more substantive between us than a penguin wearing a silly fedora.

It’s not that hard, James. I’ve read enough of your AMRs to know you can write. Of course, I’m only assuming you can write non-fiction as well.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

How about a sexy penguin?

[](http://imgur.com/KfHNiX1)

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

If you’ve had relations with her, I’d take that story, certainly--or any other kind of interaction you'd like to detail.

Since she’s highly ranked on a Google image search for “sexy penguin,” however, I hesitate to assume this. Perhaps she’s a penguin slut though, and all the sexy penguin fetishists have had her. 

Are you a penguin furry fetishist, James?

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

No.

No more penguins then. Though I am reconsidering the ice.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

So, is that the kind of thing you're looking for? You want to hear about my 'exploits'?

How about the time I defiled the mascot of the Tampa Rays? She wasn’t a penguin, but was probably aquatic. Whatever she was, she wore a black cape and jiggled her fuzzy blue arse a lot on the field.

It was well before your tenure. Boothroyd had gifted me with a sedative-injecting pen and little else to get myself into the owner’s booth during game two of the American’s inaptly named World Series. 

So I found a girl, of course. This one just happened to be covered in blue fur.

I worked her all afternoon, encountering her under the cover of a park employee in the tunnels as she came and went from the field. By the time her team had scored several times, she was exuberant, her energy literally bouncing off the concrete walls of the stadium. In other words, she was ripe. 

She found herself paged to an upper floor, and again, there I was. A little flirting, and we moved to a lightly trafficked corridor so she could remove her headpiece. A little more, and I had her crushed up against the wall, futilely trying to wrap her fur-clad legs around me while I sucked at her neck. She wasn’t wearing a stitch under the suit.

She suggested we find someplace more private. I laughed, keeping it low and friendly, removing a hand from within her suit enough to gesture at the crowded stadium surrounding us. 

Her grin was intoxicating, flush as she was with their imminent victory. She boasted that she knew a place, giggling and half-mad with excitement. 

I helped her settle the suit back into place and checked that my Rays cap was still low on my head. Through the corridors she led me, fuzzy hand in mine. We slipped right past the overflowing luxury booths with their too-inquisitive occupants, a game I’d had simply no time to work that day. 

Eventually, the corridor quieted and there we were, outside the unoccupied owner’s booth. I shoved her against the wall again and slipped my hands into her suit. I made it all but impossible for her to focus enough to key in the code. 

Once she finally managed, she dragged me into the box by my ears. I had started in on the suit’s fastenings before the door shut behind us and had her pushed over a very expensive leather couch with her suit gaping open a long zipper pull after that.

She watched the end of the sixth inning like that, facing the glass while I pounded into her. At some point her mask flew off and rolled until it smacked the window. I waited for her to come (it seemed only fair), finishing myself as her cries started to escalate. Abandoning the rough handling, I leaned forward, still inside her. My body stretched a long promise against hers, sheltering my hand from the cameras. The pen hissed against her neck, and she was still.

I tossed the condom sloppily toward the bin, landing it intentionally on the coffee table. I came around the couch zipping my flies and sat next to her, knocking the laptop onto the floor as I did. It was a matter of seconds to download what I needed from the terminal, and I brushed her hair back tenderly for the cameras as I did.

I left her there, a sweaty mess draped over the couch, with her fuzzy blue suit around her knees and the eyes of her mask staring back at her from the floor.

She was fired right after the game. They never even looked for me.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Oh, bravo. Very amusing. The furry exploits of 007. Though it lacks even a hint of avian subculture (it’s the wrong pole, anyway), I’m sure I will survive.

I should make you sedative-laced condoms. You could cut the middle step right out and never have to deal with post-shag awkwardness again. Professionally _or_ personally.

Yes, you can tell me this kind of thing, if that’s what you’d like. I’ll take whatever kind of thing you want to give me. There are no actual rules here, but is this really what you’d like to use our precious bandwidth for, Bond? You couldn’t even tell me about sometime you were _having fun?_ (The girl has fared quite well, by the way. It’s not a guilt you actually need to carry.)

My seemingly-endless shift is nearly over, but I think I can still manage to leave you with something less furry to think about.

I was fifteen the first time I felt a mouth on my cock. I thought she was unsure when she pushed me down, all soft and saccharine, but she was pissed as hell at a friend who had, apparently, a rather large crush on me (though it would be years still before I learned this). I was deathly afraid to make any noise at all, so I shoved my face into the cushion. Her mouth was hot, wet and surprisingly agile: when my impossible-to-suppress thrusting brought me to the back of her throat, she maneuvered me back effortlessly, just enough pressure on my sternum to hold me off. She clearly had the advantage of experience on me, and not just years. 

It was, of course, over quickly, and I utterly failed to warn her (I might have thought to, possibly, if I’d had any warning myself). Her coughing brought attention from the party raging in the next room, and an awkward, muttered “Thank you” was the last thing I ever said to her. I doubt she even heard me. She bounded off to rejoin the party—her mission accomplished—while I pitifully tried to navigate my cock back into my pants under the watchful glare of her friends.

All in all, it was almost exactly nothing like the first time you took me in your mouth. The only similarity is that neither time did I have any idea what to do with my hands. Neither of you did I dare to touch—to spook—the fear so overwhelming I could not think around it. I did not dare even to breathe, and she reveled in that power but you... 

You held my eyes, and my breath evened to meet yours. You knelt there between my legs, and your strength melted in through my thighs. You were inexorably there _with me,_ solid and real. 

Undeniable, as you usually are.

As you have been ever since.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

You could do that? With the condoms?

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

I could, yes. I _won’t._

Though I’m now considering making some exploding ones.

Seriously? That was your take-away? The condoms?

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

No. 

It was just... taking apart what you did to me with the rest might take a little time.

Give me some?

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Ever since, James. Ever since.

(I’m grinning at my screen now, you dolt, and it’s making the minions nervous. Sleep.)

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------


	2. Chapter 2

I have never seen so much white in my life, Q. I’m on the edge of town. I can see out the window from where I am, tucked under a mountain of blankets (only a fool gets out of bed here before he has to). The view seems to go on forever. When it's light, the snow and sky bleed together, like nothing else exists.

I remember waking up on your couch that day, the rich smell of its leather and the tap-tap-tap of your keyboard a welcome comfort, short-circuiting my usual disorientation. Your office is always warm, so I’d kicked off most of the quilt. One of my bare feet hung over the side, and the other was buried where cushion and back met. I didn’t remember taking off my shoes. My jacket hung from a chair, and my tie was draped there, too. I didn’t remember unbuttoning my shirt, either.

More surprisingly, I was using your thigh for a pillow. I had no memory of even settling in on the couch, much less of taking such liberty with your lap. You were contorted to indulge me, tapping away with your laptop at an awkward angle on the arm, your legs splayed wide for balance. 

I studied your face. You’d been riding the ‘tail-end’ of a crisis when I’d walked in to your office and had looked absolutely exhausted. My watch said I’d slept almost four hours, and the lines of your face were deeper, the shadows darker. Clearly, you hadn’t let up while I slept.

I watched you mutter a curse and punch at the keyboard violently. Line after line of code vanished from your screen. You slid a hand into your hair and tugged at it, hard, then shoved it out of your face. You glared at the ceiling for a long moment, then back down to your screen, all without noticing me watching you.

That decided me.

I rolled off the couch onto my knees, mindful of my shoulder after it reminded me to be. Your focus was so narrow, you didn’t seem to notice me coming to kneel between your legs. Perhaps you were simply too engrossed to acknowledge me. 

Whichever, I’d plucked your laptop from your hands before I could tell you knew I was there. You scowled at me and twisted to follow it down to where I set it beside you on the seat, muttering, “At least let me save, you bloody Neanderthal.” Your right leg’s shift aborted when it bumped into my side.

I chuckled. It came out low and sleep-roughened and seemed to catch your attention. Your focus was a palpable thing as I slid my hands behind your knees and pulled you toward me. Your eyes went wide as your arse slid forward and your back slid down. I felt my face split in a grin, and, one-handed, I attacked your flies.

My shoulder didn’t even twinge, Q, I swear. I was too engrossed in watching your face for the pain to touch me. I was glad you didn’t seem to remember my injury either, though that fact also added to my resolve.

Only when I had you free did I break away from your eyes. I slid my hands along your hips to cup your arse and pulled you up to meet me, taking as much of you in as I could with that first swallow. 

You yelped. I would have smiled, but my mouth was otherwise engaged.

I felt your hands in my hair. I would have told you to go ahead and pull, but... see above. Your hands smacked into the leather on either side of my head, and you gripped that instead.

I shifted and found my rhythm, drawing you in the rest of the way and swallowing around your girth. You gasped and your knuckles went white against the chocolate leather and that earned it my envy.

I wasn’t trying for subtle or slow. I hoped there’d be time enough later to learn your angles and planes, but that wasn’t what that particular moment was for. That moment was for taking in as much of you as I could, for feeling you deep within me, inhaling nothing but your musk and hearing nothing but the low moans you couldn’t hold in... for consuming you whole and wringing you dry.

After, I licked you clean, mindful of over-stimulation but still greedy for you, nonetheless. I felt your eyes on me as I tucked you back into your clothes. I knew you wanted me to look up, but I lay my head back in your lap instead, wanting to keep the moment a little longer. 

It wasn’t long before I felt your hand on my hair.

“James...”

I swallowed thickly. “Q.”

You tugged gently at my hair. 

I looked up—I wasn’t ready to face whatever reality might be bringing me, but I was even less ready to deny you. I lifted my head and felt your hand slide down my neck. I met your eyes, and felt my breath catch in my throat. 

You smiled at me and said, “Come up here, you idiot.” Your hand slid down to cup my jaw, and you drew me in for what turned into a luxuriant, lazy snog.

After a while, you fell asleep. 

I would have felt insulted if that hadn’t been the point.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

////OMEGACRYPT CHAT INITIATED\\\\\\\

Q: Smug bastard.

> J: Yes. 

Q: You know, you wouldn’t have caught me so off guard that day if I hadn’t been so convinced you were pissed at me.

> J: I was pissed at you? 

Q: Over the scanners.  
Q: Surely you remember? I thought you were going to exercise your bloody license to kill on the med tech who showed up to set your shoulder, right there in my office.

> J: He surprised me! 

Q: Obviously.  
Q: Though he shouldn’t have. Did you expect me to relocate your shoulder myself? Or maybe talk you though slamming yourself into a wall.  
Q: Your life is straight out of the cinema enough as it is, Bond.

> J: Maybe if you’d bothered to tell me you were calling him, I might have reacted better! 

Q: You’d only have run off.  
Q: And I didn’t call him.

> J: Then how the bloody hell did he know to show up? 

Q: From your bloody scans! How do you think?  
Q: Moron.

> J: You sent him my scans? 

Q: Of course I... did you think I'd been reading them myself all those months?  
Q: I’m not a bloody doctor, Bond.

> J: I thought... your computer can do all kinds of incredible things. 

Q: It’s no kind of substitute for a qualified radiologist and medical team.  
Q: Did you really think I’d play with your life like that, James?

> J: Not when you put it like that, but you never said... 

Q: You never asked.  
Q: And I honestly thought you knew.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
Q: Are you still there, James?

> J: Yeah. 

Q: Are you angry?

> J: No. Not really.  
>  J: I just didn’t know someone else was... listening, for want of a better word. 

Q: It was just the scans, nothing else.

> J: Sorry. I know that. I do. 

Q: No apologies necessary. I understand.

> J: I’m just morose. Fucking ice.  
>  J: How long until I can come home? 

Q: Too long. You’re not even officially iced-in yet.  
Q: Are you making any progress?

> J: No.  
>  J: Not that I’m supposed to be, yet.  
>  J: It’s weird up here, Q. Too many people and nowhere near enough. Everyone in everyone else’s business like it’s the official town hobby. 

Q: It almost is, in a mining town like that, isn’t it?

> J: Yes, you’re right. The air’s just charged with it. It’s worse than a normal cover, eyes on me all the bloody time.  
>  J: I have to go. My shift’s in 30 minutes.

Q: I know. Just... watch yourself, James. You’re about the least likely person I know to get unnecessarily twitchy. Listen to your instincts.

////OMEGACRYPT CHAT TERMINATED\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

[](http://s102.photobucket.com/user/13_dragons/media/Bond%20James%20Bond/0d71b169-a15f-4b36-9a6f-76c2acd5b0b4.jpg.html)


	3. Chapter 3

need to go dark for a wihle can’t read concussion  
accident  
am fine

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Thanks ever-so for the VM.

Really, James? On an open line? Very double-oh-suave.

Did you decide the best way to keep me safe was to drown me in thrice-copied forms?

////TRANSCRIPT LOG BEGINS\\\\\\\  
IC: Q, I please don’t hang... {fast}  
CR: Quartermaster.  
CR: This can’t possibly be a mystery; leave a message.  
CR: Better still, send me an email.  
//VM beeps//  
IC: {sighs loudly}  
//pause: {hissing rain audible} {background conversation unintelligible without enhancement}//  
IC: I need to talk to you, not your bloody mail, Q. {emphasis: you}  
IC: {cloth rustles} I didn’t mean to run you off, but...  
IC: {sighs loudly} {likelihood of IC inebriation: 70%}  
IC: I turned around and there you were, miles from where you were supposed to be.  
IC: I didn’t react well.  
IC: I’m never going to react well, Q, not to you putting yourself in danger.  
IC: {IC sputters softly} You can’t just get on a plane because you think I’m in a funk. {REV likelihood of IC inebriation: 90%}  
IC: Just, call me, please?  
IC: I need your voice in my ear before I...  
//pause: {rains sounds increased; IC likely outside} {laugher barks in background}//  
IC: I just need to know you’re safe.  
//Call Terminates//  
Call #: 01-YYYY-435649-I  
Call Type: Hard Line // Public  
Call Destination: Hard Line // Quartermaster’s Office // Voicemail  
Call Origination: Temporary Camp off Shishmaref Inlet, Alaska, USA//Hayley’s Ice Hole and Grill; 01:32 Local // 17:32 London  
Call Duration: 01:26

Incoming Caller (IC): Bond, James (Verified)  
Call Recipient (CR): The Quartermaster (Voicemail)  
Other Participants: Background participants assumed to be uninvolved civilians (pub patrons?); will be identified only if situation escalates to necessitate.  
////END TRANSCRIPT LOG\\\\\\\

You know, I never would have come if I had any faith you’d take care of your own brain injury. I used to, but I find I just don’t any more. Ignorance of how much weight you give to luck truly was a kind of bliss.

I forgive you, all right? Even for the paperwork, if you get home in one piece.

~ Q

////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

////OMEGACRYPT SECURE EMAIL FORWARD\\\\\\\

FROM: Q {Q-6}  
TO: M {M-6}  
CC: Tanner {Bill.Tanner}; Fucktards at HR {HR-6};   
BCC: Bond, J {00-00110111@.email4u.com}  
RE: Form 335-B Supplemental - “How it started”

You want to know how it started? I _should_ say it started when you placed him into my care, but that’s not really it, is it? You place lots of agents into my care.

No, it started when you took him out of yours. When you bloody well stopped paying attention. 

Allow me to give official account:

* * *

007 was due back at 14:00. He’d touched down at a private airstrip outside of Cardiff at 16:45 (he’d been scheduled for Heathrow) and hired a luxury car, so I wasn’t yet concerned at 20:30 when he was dropped at the front door. He started his initial debriefing at 20:35.

At 21:50, my office doors opened. I didn’t look up, absorbed as I was in the Tarsus code, until a cascade of clinking metal hit my inbox. Bond grinned at my no-doubt-startled expression. He was filthy and blood-streaked, and I made a mental note to mention that in his file since it justified, in this particular instance, the indulgence of the car, which had actually been far less flashy than overpaying enough at the local Enterprise to get them to overlook his condition.

I picked up a piece of the metal he’d dropped. After a moment, I identified it as the lower half of his Walther’s grip plate. A moment’s digging through the pile, and I was holding the other half, which showed much clearer evidence of pressure shearing. I picked through the other parts for a little longer than was necessary to verify that they we all from the same pistol and showed similar stress; the extra time allowed me to assure that my expression when I looked up would be properly disapproving and not in any way incredulous at the damage he’d managed to inflict on the poor weapon.

Not that it helped. 

“What is this, 007?” I asked sternly.

His grin widened, becoming less cocky and more honest; it let his exhaustion show through. “Do you remember saying,” and here his voice rose, “‘If you can’t manage to return your gear in usable condition, you could at least return what’s left so I can run diagnostics to improve future models’?” He cocked his head toward what, even to my trained eye, looked like a pile of odd metallic rocks. 

For the official record: James Bond does not do a good impression of me, not then and not now. And not of anyone, come to think of it. Bond's skills lie in making you _accept him_ , not in blending in.

I pulled a jagged piece of granite from the pile and held it up for his inspection.

He plucked it from my fingers and muttered, “Environmental contamination.” It landed in the bin with a clang.

“What...” I had to pause to assemble my patience, but I continued quickly enough, “happened to it?”

His grin got impossibly wider. “I used it to stop a train.”

“You used it...” I remember reaching up to pinch the bridge of my nose and stopping myself. “Never mind. I’ll read the report.” I scooped the bits into an intra-lab envelope and willed myself to not react outwardly to the disappointment that played across 007’s face. I doubt that I was successful, as evidenced by the wattage of his grin when I looked back up.

I snapped, “I assume the rest of your gear was too mutilated to return at all?” at him. 

“Not even a little credit for that one, then?”

In the tradition of Quartermasters everywhere, I glared at him until he dropped his eyes. My voice dismissive, I asked, “Is there anything else, 007?” while shuffling the papers that inevitably appear on my desk.

“No, sir,” he said softly. I kept my eyes on the papers (how can I force my 'colleagues' to stop sending these redundant reams?), and the next thing I heard was the clicking of my door.

(Bond did not simply set the Walther on the tracks and derail a train, despite what he clearly hoped I would believe. He shoehorned it into the brake mechanism at a critical point, though I’m quite certain that any number of other objects at hand—from umbrellas to rocks—would have done just as well. Section 55C of the After Mission Report for 654325-4352-GF-563 gives the details.)

* * *

The next time I saw 007 was when he came to collect his new equipment.

"Heading out, 007?" I asked without looking up at him. 

I saw his nod out of the corner of my eye. "Tuscany, this time?" 

Bond nodded again. "Simple grab-and-run; no need for anything fancy." I took my turn at nodding before he continued, "Did you spit and tape my old Walther back together, or do I get a new one this time?"

I should have. I should have issued him his old one glued back into a vaguely pistol-shaped mass, rocks, twigs, and all. Instead of saying that, I (rolling my eyes a little, but less than he deserved) laid his new PPK on the desk. Beside it, I set a rock. 

That earned me a quizzical look. I said nothing.

Bond holstered the Walther then picked up the rock. He took its measure, getting the weight and heft of it in first one hand, then the other. It was a simple granite river stone, smoothed by time and water, weighing several pounds and perhaps five inches at its widest measure. I saw him notice the tiny "00000000 00000000 00000111," etched into one surface, but he didn't say anything. (Little surprises me about Bond anymore, but I’ll eat a spider if the man can translate even ‘007’ from binary.)

He tossed the stone from hand to hand once more, thoughtfully, then grinned and slid it into his trouser pocket. Against all logic, it barely pulled at the line, let alone caused a bulge. (We really should investigate the man's tailor; blood sacrifice on that level must be a security threat.)

My voice stopped him at the doorway. "007?" 

He turned to look back at me. "Yes, Q?"

I scowled at his schoolboy smirk, so he cranked up its volume. I tried not to sigh aloud, but I don't think I succeeded. I know my face softened because he leaned in toward me, his gaze intent and remarkably open. 

Quietly, I admonished, "Do try to bring _something_ back intact this time?" 

Bond nodded again and was gone.

* * *

A week after setting off for his two-day, "simple grab-and-run," 007 limped into my office. I was buried deep in the Charlemagne mission, but something made me look up when he reached my desk.

Expressionless, he fished his stone out of his pocket and placed in on my blotter. His eyes caught mine, and I watched them instead of his hands. After a moment, the ice behind them thawed a bit, and an exhausted smile tried to light them.

In a voice like crushed gravel, he said, "It could use a bit of a service, but I think it's intact enough." I don’t know how he was still moving; I couldn’t see a single unbruised patch of flesh.

I didn't follow his meaning until he inclined his head toward the rock on my desk. It was covered in blood and... bits. Bits of things I now assume (after reading his report) were bone and brain. 

I found I needed to swallow before I said, “It does appear to be in one piece, yes.” 

“Thank you,” he said seriously. I boggled at him, and, again, he inclined his head at the rock, eyes gone bright with loosely banked mirth. “It turned out to be very useful.” 

He’d limped back out of my office before I could come up with anything coherent to say in reply.

* * *

That was, I shouldn’t need to point out, 12 June.

On 12 June, as you well know, Bond returned from his _utterly fucked_ Tuscany mission, crossing the Channel on a cargo ship, and called in dockside—where he was told to take transit in and limped— _literally—_ home.

Once back at Six, he promised a round to gate security (Matthis’s wife had just given him a boy), chatted up Analise at the front desk, exchanged mindless waffle with countless staff in the hall, checked in with his _oblivious_ Quartermaster, fended off Moneypenny’s mild concern effortlessly, and made a full official debrief. 

Then he limped into a cab home... and nearly bled out internally in his bathroom, as I’m quite sure you remember.

The man is, undeniably, a stubborn moron, but—and this is key for me, so you’d bloody well better be paying attention—you _knew_ that. _You knew that,_ and you _knew_ that he’d skipped his medical, and that he was injured. You knew _all of that._

And it _still_ took you three fucking days to notice him on his bathroom floor.

THAT is when IT bloody well started.

When you fucking _proved_ I can’t rely on you to take care of him.

You can shut the fuck up about how _I_ choose to do so.

Most Sincerely,  
The Quartermaster

////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

You actually sent that to M, didn’t you?

Of course you did. You wouldn’t bother spoofing email headers for me.

\- J  
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\------------------------------

 

I don’t really think agent drunk-dial has room to criticize on this subject.

~Q  
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\------------------------------

 

I didn’t mean it like that, Q, and you know it. And I know better than to drink with a concussion.

\- J  
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\------------------------------

 

Unless you have to.

~ Q  
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\------------------------------

 

Unless I have to.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

You do know you’re going to have to file one too, eventually, don’t you? Unless you plan on never returning to Six.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

////OMEGACRYPT SECURE EMAIL FORWARD\\\\\\\

FROM: Bond, J {James.Bond}  
TO: M {M-6}  
CC: Tanner {Bill.Tanner}; Human Resources {HR-6};   
BCC: Q {01010001@email4u.com}  
RE: Form 335-B Supplemental - “How it started”

I hear you’d like to know how it started. 

Allow me to give my official account: 

**SOD THE FUCK OFF.**

\-- Bond  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

And you can’t believe I sent *mine*?

~ Q  
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\------------------------------

 

What are they going to do? They can’t fire either of us — they’d have to kill us. They need us too much right now to do that over something this mundane.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

M wouldn’t do that. Not unless you’d gone seriously rogue and even then... he’d fail. You’d just come back. Again.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

“Rogue” has a varied lot of definitions, depending on where you’re standing. Never doubt that they both could and would, Q. I’d never see them coming.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Well, that’s a given. If you saw them coming, then I *know* they’d fail.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

You know I’m not going to let this pass, right? As much as I loved your “official” response, you’re going to have to do better than “Sod off,” at least in private.

~ Q  
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\------------------------------


	4. Chapter 4

I think my flat just blew up.

To be clear: I am fine. I’m watching it on the big screen at work.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Shit.

Rats?

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

There’s no way to know—reports are just coming in. From the satellite, it looks like it was just my level that blew. The smoke is making it hard to see details... he should be fine, right? The sun was out; he would have been sunning...

And you know I hate it when you call him that.

~Q  
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\------------------------------

 

First: Stay put. **Do not go home**. Not for any reason. 

Second: I know you hate the nickname, but he likes it just fine.

Erratum has more lives than I do. It’s what, half two there? Doesn’t Mrs. Menglebe finish her shift at 1:30? You know she feeds him when she gets home. He’s not one to miss a meal, so he’s fine.

Third: I mean it, Q. Don’t go anywhere near your flat. You’re at my place, understand? 

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

I... yes. I’ll go to yours, assuming I can ever leave here. I don’t want to leave you hanging, but we’re turning rather inward here. I’ll be back online when I can.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Don’t worry about me, my thumbs need a good twiddling.

Just figure out what the hell’s happened.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

>   
>  ////OMEGACRYPT SECURE TEXT FORWARD\\\\\\\
> 
> `Q, is this him? `
> 
> `He’s pretty pissed at me in this pic, but that’s more from soot removal than application, I think. `
> 
> `I couldn’t let him at Bond’s furniture as he was. Tell him I’m sorry about the mess in his loo—but not close to sorry enough to scrub it up. I can’t seem to get him back on the number he used to get me.`
> 
> `-Eve`
> 
> [ ](http://imgur.com/b1vkz8K)
> 
> ////END FORWARD\\\\\\\   
> 

I’ve been compromised, we’re tracking 3 terrorist cells in London, and you sent Moneypenny _after my cat?_

Via a line I told you never to share with _anybody?_

No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------


	5. Chapter 5

It’s so dark here. Tell me something I should know, but don’t.

Something that matters.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

We’ve talked around this night, but never about it.

I didn’t know you were back, not right away. Usually, I know the moment you’re back on British soil, but this time, you never left it.

Not physically, anyway.

You were overdue though, and it was an itch I couldn’t ignore, that need to know. I wasn’t surprised you’d gone to ground, but I had to find you. I couldn’t concentrate; I couldn’t even bluff it. I knew, of course, that you weren’t okay, Nothing about that mission was okay.

So I checked _their_ status, and they were snug in their diplomatic jet, winging their way back to Darfur, every single one of the bastards still alive. A successful mission, oh, joy.

You understand, it was not your skill I questioned, it was your stomach—and not even that, really.

I knew you’d never be able to put aside the devastation that would inevitably follow failure; I just couldn’t fathom the reality of it. I still can’t imagine how you resisted giving them all the horrific deaths they deserved.

Sometimes, I am so fucking proud of you, I can’t breathe around it.

So, success, then. Mission accomplished. The fact that you weren’t prompt in reporting was hardly a surprise, but, as I said before, it was also absolutely intolerable for me.

I started easy and pinged your phone. The tracking program chirped almost instantly with its location: your phone was in the garden of Mrs. Cecile Isley, 87, widowed and living off the pension her husband earned in the second war. I made the rash leap that you were with it, since it was mere yards from the entrance to MI6’s North Tunnel.

It wasn’t voluntary, really, my heading for you. I was through security and at my car before I’d even consciously processed that you’d been in that garden for more than an hour. I can’t say I paid much attention to traffic laws on my way to the widow Isley’s; any observer would likely have thought I’d learned to drive by watching outtakes from you on mission.

Five— _ten?_ —minutes later and I was there. Mrs. Isley’s gate, tall though it was, offered no obstacle. I clambered over it and landed in front of you.

You didn’t draw.

I didn’t move, and you didn’t either. You stood there, perhaps a yard away, caked in mud and… actually the fetid stench of blood hit me before I took in the gore. My eyes refused to see it, focused, as they were, on yours as you went from staring through me to staring _at_ me.

I was feverishly grateful I hadn’t found only your phone.

I waited, watching your chest rise and fall far too fast, literally waiting for you to blink. You didn’t. Not, at least, until the rain that neither of us had noticed starting weighed down your eyelashes. I have no idea how long we stood before that, but the movement broke something open in you, and you said my name—a question, if I didn’t know better, a prayer.

I closed the distance, but you kept me at arm’s length, babbling about the blood and my clothes, about my skin and white and woolen and _clean._

You don’t babble, Bond, not even when you do. Those words had purpose, and, I’ll admit now, they scared the crap out of me. Not then, though. Then, I was an unstoppable object sliding through the grip you refused to tighten for fear of hurting me, taking shameless advantage of that fact.

You plucked at my sweater—that purple argyle one even I’ll admit was hideous—and I stripped it off to get it out of your view. My shirts came with it, fused into a single sodden mass, and you didn’t look away from me when the mess of it thwacked wetly into the fence. I couldn’t have looked away from you then if the entire service had arrived in armored helicopters, not with you there, in front of me, your palm cold against my now-bare chest, covering my heart and starting to shake.

You mumbled about getting it on me as I pulled you in, and I told you I didn’t care.

“I do,” you said, rough.

I didn’t doubt it for a moment.

I didn’t say—then or later—that what was on you, was already on me. I’d provided the intelligence that had gotten them safely to our shores and the surveillance that had allowed you to keep their worthless hides intact as they negotiated.

I didn’t say it because it simply wasn’t true. If you’d put those bastards in front of me, if I’d had to listen to them bragging about their _conquests_ and _cleansings—_ I’d’ve blown them away and not felt sick about the terrors I’d unleashed in their homeland until long after they’d started to rot.

So I didn’t say any of that (and I hesitate to say it still—even while acknowledging its untruth), and I didn’t let you push me away.

The rain started to come down in earnest, and that nudged me to action. I pulled at your coat. You didn’t flinch when I dropped it in the mud. You stayed pliant as I stripped first your suit jacket, then you shirts from you. The rain pelted our bare skin, and I watched you flush pink then go pale again as the cold set in.

It never even occurred to me to worry about physical shock, though I suppose it should have.

I fumbled at the widow’s clothesline blindly because I wasn’t going to take my eyes off you, coming away with a drenched flannel. You swayed as I scrubbed at the blood on your neck and let me move your arms to clean the…

You know, I still don’t know what it was you’d gotten all over? The blood, that I put together easily enough from the missing rebels and the lack of luck had by that investigation. But the muck? What did you do, roll in the bin behind the zoo?

No, never mind. I don’t think I actually want to know.

I kept cleaning and you swayed with the strokes. Your feet were solidly planted, but I think I could have knocked you over with a good enough nudge. I sent first the cloth, then a pair of lace-trimmed hand towels to join my shirts in the mud against the fence before I was satisfied with your chest and arms.

Fingers on your chin, I tilted your face up into the rain. I swiped along your jaw, down and left. A second curved around your eye to follow the same path down, and, suddenly, you just buckled, leaving me to support your entire weight.

Which I bloody well can’t do when I know it’s coming, so we went to our knees. You leaned into me, chest braced against mine, heart hammering into mine, the both of us rain-slick and too oblivious to shiver.

I resumed my cleaning around your ears, and the blood came off easily, soaked as we were. A saucer caught my eye, full to the brim with rainwater. I drained it into your hair, and even that small increase in pressure was enough to clean the last of the blood from your short strands, the rain already having made off with the heavier bits best left unidentified, even in retrospect.

I turned your face back up into the rain, and you left your eyes open this time, staring up into the sky, meeting its flat grey with your own. All the color had been washed from you, even that usually so-startling blue. You blinked occasionally as I ran the cloth over your face again and again and drew in ragged breaths that steamed my glasses and took them from near-useless to completely so (not that sight mattered then, in that place). I continued moving the cloth along your face long after you were clean.

When the rain slowed, you buried your face in my neck. I slid the cloth down to work on your neck and back, even though the rain had long since washed them clean. I’m not sure who I was really soothing at that point, but it never crossed my mind to stop.

Later—I have no idea how much later—I became aware you were trying to urge me up. I tried to go, but my knees were locked from the cold and wet. I had to let you go. I had to focus sternly on my hands to get them to release you, even for only so long as you needed to rise and help me to stand.

You probably remember the rest better than I do. I remember being smart enough to chuck your phone into the lily pond, but forgetting that I keep blankets in the boot until you pulled them out.

I remember the sudden ache of realizing why you'd dumped our sodden, bloody clothes in as you grabbed the blankets out.

I remember the blood still under your nails as you rubbed life back into my hands while we waited for the fogging to clear from the windows, and you driving—precise and controlled, of course—shifting with my hand wrapped under your own.

I remember the never-ending warmth of a hotel shower blooming my skin painfully back to life, and you saying you couldn’t get close enough to me because it was _in the way,_ then trying your best anyway. I remember the way your shoulder tasted there, under the spray, and the way your tears tasted when you finally let go, breaking and reforming under my hands in all that heat and wet.

I don’t remember getting out or getting dry—honestly, I’m not always sure either of us ever really has—but I remember waking up pulled tight against your chest, the even beat of your heart in my ear, and your low laugh as my stomach growled loud and long.

And I remember the way, when you opened the curtains to find the room service menu, your eyes caught blue with blue and glowed in the sun.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

The thing is...

Fuck, I’m just going to say it. You deserve to know. More than.

The thing is, I enjoyed it.

Not protecting the bastards. Every moment of that was a test of my self control. My fingers twitched constantly, feinting toward my gun. Really though, they couldn’t have been safer from that, because what I wanted to do was tear them apart. Slowly.

No, what I enjoyed came later. You know the bastards were almost to their jet when I stepped between them and the rebels. You’ve read my report.

What you don’t know is that I stood at the gate and let my rage in. I chummed for it, churning the waters in all the black places that had been roiling for days with no outlet. Every inch deliberate, I called it. 

I turned it all on them, knowing they’d run. Anything would. I was black enough to stand down a bull elephant in full charge, the barrel of death itself staring down at them. Their targets had already made their escape, and these men were armed with nothing but pain.

I watched them stop short. Me, the rifle, the jet’s takeoff whine, _something_ stopped them. I said nothing. I know better than to underestimate pain. 

The one in the red jacket—Ungulhu, his autopsy named him—only hesitated for a moment before he charged me. A bare beat in which my heart fell, and something else rose. I fired a burst of warning shots barely to their right, then snapped the butt of the rifle out in time to catch Ungulhu in the gut as he tried to pass. Ungulhu went down to the tarmac. 

Four of the others fled; one did not. 

White shirt tucked beneath an olive jacket, he charged at me. I tossed the rifle into the dirt and let him close. He had other ideas and tried to shove me aside, screaming at the taxiing jet that he had to know where they were, that he knew they were dead, but he needed to know where they were. He collapsed against me as the wheels left the ground, still screaming but now through sobs.

I didn’t know Ungulhu was moving again until his fist slammed into my kidneys. I lashed back with my elbow, catching him in the chin and sending the other, older man spinning free to the ground. A glob of spittle landed on my cheek, an accompaniment to Ungulhu’s curses. He kicked at my feet, and I let him. I let him, and I took him to the ground with me, and I rolled my momentum through to my fist in a powerhouse cross into his sternum.

The punch could easily have been enough to stop his heart. It probably killed him. 

I don’t know, because I didn’t stop there. He did. He stopped, but I... 

I didn’t. 

I pounded his jaw a few times, sending teeth and blood arching through the night. I straddled him and blasted at his kidneys with my fists, the rage that I thought had peaked building higher in me with each blow I landed. 

My fists were slick. I gripped his jacket with my left, hauling him up. I slammed into his stomach again and again, my fury with him for not running coursing through me, my fist sinking deeper into his belly with each blow. At some point, I broke through, and he was hot around me, guts and viscera slipping between my fingers. It felt _right_. I felt more solid than I had in _days._

I gripped and twisted and yanked, and his stomach popped out in my hand, trailed by a glisten of intestine. I pulled thick ropes of it out of him, screaming all the while that he was a stupid fuck who couldn’t protect his family by being _dead,_ and why the fuck hadn’t he _run?_

I kept pulling, and his intestines kept coming, sliding wetly through my palms until, over and over, they stuck, and I ripped them free to pull anew. I emptied him, a hound with a hole, and each tear released something in me. Even the fetid smell of his bowls, their stink washing over me with every tug, was welcome and real. Freeing. 

Deserved.

When I had him empty, his guts decorating the tarmac, I reached back in with both hands and searched, groping his sides and ribs for... I’m not sure what. I didn’t find it. He was all pulled out. I sank to my knees beside him, covered in his gore.

Eventually, a searchlight played hot against my face. I heard sirens distantly, but there was something else. Something closer. I nearly fumbled my Walther, drawing it with slick fingers.

The second man hadn’t moved from where I’d pushed him. I stood over him and he stared back, barely taking time for breath around his ragged begging.

He had to know where they were buried, he said, because as long as he didn’t know, there was a chance. His wife, he sobbed. Her sisters. His sisters. His daughter _and her children ._

He mourned because they might be _alive._

I shot him in the head, Q, and we never even learned his name. 

I knew he’d never stop, so I shot him in the head and thought only that I was lucky the Walther had recognized me through all the other DNA covering it. 

I shot him in the head, and I headed for the North Tunnel, and you found what was left of me in the widow’s yard.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

And what am I supposed to do now, James? Run home with my toys because you're such a monster? 

Or do I tell you how much higher my body count is than yours? Because it is undeniably so. 

Shall I lie and pretend I cannot understand how adrenaline and that intricate web of precise, blindingly brilliant decisions required of us can mingle with rage and the rush of perfect execution? How it can all shake loose in the brain and sing through the body, riotous and so disconnected from the horrific reality that it can slide right into lust?

Maybe I should. I probably will, but it will have to wait until I’ve extricated 009 from his current situation.

For now, I offer this instead: you—and I, the both of us—we're the monsters we need to be. We do what has to be done because we can while others cannot, and we pay for it every time with chunks of our souls. We deal with it because that's also what we do, and we can do that because, with time and perspective, _our_ bits grow back. 

Eventually.

Mine grow back faster with you around.

I suspect yours would grow faster if you stopped watering them with scotch.

~ Q   
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------


	6. Chapter 6

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think you may be right about when "it" (and really, can we get any more sophomorically euphemistic?) started between us, but it's not the moment I would have picked on my own.

The following is most emphatically _not_ going to M, but you’re right. Fair’s fair. This does count as my turn though, right?

My first instinct is to say it started more with that damn pedestal in your office than with my rock.

I remember walking in that day, so tired it took me a few steps to notice anything amiss. Looking back, it was obvious: empty wrappings by the bin, overflowing; a stack of closed boxes in the corner, a good four feet tall; unidentifiable bits on the workbench were nothing new, but these were strewn deep and careless; covers snugly fit over several of your more enigmatic machines; a four-foot diameter, 12-inch tall, rotating pedestal in the middle of your open space, portable spotlights off but ready to illuminate its empty surface; and the scowl on your face, the anger set deep in the line of your shoulders.

I'll admit it was that last which I noticed first, a moth to your fire, even then.

One at a time, I set the cracked tablet, that tacky camera you call a tie clip, and my scuffed-but-intact Walther in front of you. You pinched the bridge of your nose and didn’t quite hide your smile as you took in my offerings. “Double-0...” you started to say, then stood so fast you sent papers flying to the floor.

I suppose I looked as bad as I felt. This was likely why I’d been given such a wide berth in the hall. You were around your desk before I was done saying, “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“You can’t possibly expect me to believe you actually know how bad it looks, Bond, or you would have gone to medical first.” You’d stopped just short of me, your reach toward my face stillborn. “I’m surprised no one called the response team on you when you got out of the lift.”

“Or did you try to lose them in the warehouse tunnels?” You looked at the door expectantly, then took in the boxes strewn across your floor. “Should I clear a path for the gurney?”

“No pursuit, Q,” I tried to soothe. “Though that does beg the question: What’s happened to your office? I’ve never seen it like...”

“Top-down-mandated salesforce day,” you snapped, muttering “Bloody vultures,” under your breath. My pleasure that you were irritated again by more than just me was fleeting. You shook it off quickly—you have the focus of a field agent—and added a sharp, “Don’t change the subject, 007,” almost immediately.

I think I actually looked down at my feet.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Mugassi and Associates,” I deadpanned. 

You rolled your eyes and picked up my Walther. “And the PPK?”

“It may have dragged along the tarmac for a few miles”

You squinted at me. “And where were you?” 

I didn’t look away. “Holding it up as best as I could, Quartermaster.”

“Oh, for the love of... Out, Bond. Get yourself to Medical.”

I have no idea what gave me away, but your “Wait” stopped me cold at the door. I didn’t turn. I couldn’t have continued if I’d been under fire.

You stalked up behind me. I listened to your footfalls advance and still didn’t turn. I felt the air move as you again aborted a touch. 

I heard you sigh just before your hand landed on my shoulder. I hadn’t felt you moving that time, and I didn’t quite catch my hiss of pain in time.

You cursed, and your hands turned me easily to face you. My eyes fixed on your jumper while you made short work of my tie and buttons. I didn’t wince as you pulled the shirt and its scabs away, and I saw you scowl at that out of the corner of my eye.

Reflexively, I said, “It’s not that bad, Q.”

“Don’t be an arse, Bond.” You sucked in a breath and I felt its pull on my skin. “You’re one solid bruise.”

You pulled away and the heat of my abused skin flared. I missed the cool of your hands. You crossed swiftly to your main terminal and punched a few keys to darken the monitors, and I swayed toward where you'd been. When I looked up, you were watching me. I stared back at you.

You said, “I’m taking you to Medical myself,” no room for argument in your voice.

“No,” I said, quiet but equally firm.

“Then tell me why the fuck I’m not calling security to escort you down there?” Profanity aside, your tone was nothing more than frankly curious, yet I couldn’t break away from your eyes.

I tried, “Because I’ll be gone before they get here.” 

“Not good enough, Bond, not even by half.” I still couldn’t look away. You remained by your desk, but your quiet “Tell me _why”_ carried perfectly.

I wanted to.

I _wanted_ to.

I remember saying, “Because I trust you,” unsure what that had to do with anything.

You nodded. I can still taste the relief that flooded me. I swayed enough with it that I scraped the wall before I steadied myself.

Your eyes narrowed on me, but you said nothing. You turned to log back into your computers and said, “Lock. Protocol Q stroke 589” to the room. You hadn’t said it to me, so I didn’t bother to process it and startled when the door clicked jarringly behind me. I’m sure you noticed, but, again, you didn’t react (thank you for that).

Coolly, you said, “Well, you’re not getting out of here without someone looking you over.” You weren’t distant, though; you were the only real thing in the room. “I’ll check you in just like the rest of my equipment. Strip.”

I didn’t react. 

“Bond, your clothes.” I must have looked confused. In truth, I only heard what you’d said when I played it back. Gently, you added, “I can’t evaluate your injuries through them.”

“I bet you could,” I countered, sparking against your gentleness. I was _fine._

“Not with the equipment in this room.” You gestured at your walls and I could hear your grin, even though you’d looked down again. “I promise to be better equipped, next time.” 

I sparked against your grin, too. I peeled myself out of my clothes with as little care as my body would allow without a major influx of adrenalin. I swayed while I toed off my shoes and had to hold the wall while I stripped off my socks. 

Bare but for my pants, I looked up to find you... doing paperwork. I hopped up on that ridiculous pedestal and cleared my throat. Loudly.

To your credit, you came very close to hiding your double take. “Ready, then?” you asked calmly, but you smoothed your jumper down as you came around your desk. Point, Bond. 

Then you stepped on a foot pedal and turned those bloody searchlights on me. Point, Q. Not that I was really keeping score. (All right, no more than normal.)

I watched you go still as you got your first good look at me. Softly, I said, “It really does look a lot worse than it is.”

“That’s good,” you snapped, “because it looks like I should be viewing you on a slab in the morgue,” but you also lost that dreadful stillness, so I counted another win. 

You walked around me slowly while I tried not to shiver in the heat of those lights. I remembered to breathe, but couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. 

Eventually, you broke the silence. “You should have antibiotics for those abrasions—they’re too deep and covering too much of your skin.”

I nodded. “I’ve got them.”

I watched memory play across your face as you stared at my side. “You need a scan for those bruises...”

“No,” I interrupted, adamant. “They’re not deep, not like last time.” You didn’t look convinced, so I added, “Palpate them, if you’d like.”

You started for me, stopped to look down at your hands, then looked back up at me thoughtfully. “How do I know you’ll react to the pain?”

I closed my eyes briefly. I said, “Because I’m telling you I will,” like it was obvious. Like it meant nothing.

You didn’t buy it any more than I did, but you did move your hands to my torso. They were still cool and that time, I did shiver. I almost asked if my Walther ever shivered when you checked it in, but I didn’t.

With firm pressure, you ran your hands over the world of my bruises. Your eyes chased them across my skin, inspecting me closely. After a moment, I fixed mine over your head, a task made easier by the extra foot the pedestal gave me. I tracked your motions by touch alone. The effect was hypnotic, narrowing my world to whatever bit of skin your hands slid over, sensitized, flush, a flash of pain soothed by that same inexorable pressure, then gone. 

You were very thorough, tracing not just over the obvious organ-heavy areas of my abdomen, but also the bones of my elbows and knees and all down my spine. Your hands dipped beneath my pants, following the outline of a low, green-black bruise on my hip, and cupped each of my feet in turn, firm pressure along the arch and between my toes. You climbed up on the pedestal with me to continue your inspection to my skull, your hands lightening their pressure only over my eyes and throat.

You were everywhere.

In the wake of your hands, I ached. Somehow you’d granted me permission to do so with your touch, and “off” was no longer an option for my nerves. Exhaustion rushed in eagerly to fill the places left empty, but you’d found nothing that elicited (or deserved) more than a mild grunt from me. 

You took a step back and looked up at me... and kept looking. Your eyes held mine as if they could scan my bones through will alone. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was exactly what you were doing.

I just stood there while you thought, sedate under your gaze. I felt present in a way I don’t usually for a long time after a mission like that.

You were the first to notice when I started to sway. Your hand didn’t hesitate this time. It landed on my less-bruised hip, offering a firm counterbalance. I tried to rouse myself, but it didn’t seem worthwhile, so I let you guide me off the pedestal and over to your sofa. You wrapped me in a quilt you pulled from a cabinet and guided me down to the cushions.

I don’t remember you waking me; I only know you fed me antibiotics because you’ve told me so. I know you knew better than to feed me painkillers because I didn’t wake to ugliness.

When I finally did wake, what felt like days later, you were still there. All business, you handed me fresh clothes from my locker and bustled me smoothly into a car home. Once there, I fell on my face again.

I didn’t notice you’d stamped my wrist with your bloody ‘inventory-in’ stamp until I was in the shower the next day.

I suppose I should thank you for not stapling it to me.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Jesus, James. 

Do you have any idea what you do to me?

My... let’s call it _personal_ reaction aside, we need to talk. 

I need you to read something, but I can’t send it right now. Too many eyes. Too many simultaneous agents running.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

I will eagerly await its arrival, whatever it is.

You should know: I was so fucking disappointed the next time. 

I came to you, fresh from the Marrakech mission. You took one look at my battered face, pointed at the pedestal, and said “Strip” 

I did, my eyes down so you couldn’t see them. You were back at your desk when I finally looked up. 

I climbed up onto the pedestal, expecting you to get up. 

You looked at me and said, “Center yourself, please,” and motioned me left.

I didn’t understand, but I shifted left. I shivered, standing there in my pants; I thought that I should be glad you were too far away to see.

You pressed a few keys and I was bathed in warm red light, but you still didn’t get up. Another tap-tap and there came a click and a loud thrum. The machinery I’d been ignoring along the wall started to move, playing green light down my body as it went.

I got a mechanical whirr instead of your hands.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------


	7. Chapter 7

I’m attaching a mission transcript that the morons in Psych red-flagged. I didn’t bother you with it before—it was tragically lost to the system, so no action was taken—but now... I think you should read it.

~ Q

\---------------------

 

MISSION TRANSCRIPT 34u-809675632095

////BEGIN RED-FLAGGED PORTION\\\\\\\

{Room has been silent for previous five minutes, save for the sound of blows coming through the mic}

{Q enters command room and terminates phone call with Carlton Gifford (CG, below) (Call transcript available in Mobile Logs)}

**Q:** “Carlton, what the... just give me the bloody transcript.” 

{Paper rustles.} 

**Q:** “Oh, for the love of...”

**CG:** “He didn’t initiate emergency protocol, sir, so I stayed with procedure.” 

**Q:** “There!”

{Paper rustles directly in mic.}

**Q:** “That’s practically a safeword, coming from a double-0!”

**CG:** “Procedure dictates that if...”

**Q:** “Procedure’s got nothing to... 007’s not even supposed to be on duty tonight. Why wasn’t I called in?”

**CG:** “It was a simple insertion, sir, Control didn’t think...”

**Q:** “Clearly.” 

**Q:** “What moron do they have acting Control while M’s in Rome?”

**CG:** “This was direct from MP Dowar, Sir.”

**Q:** {Muttered} “Stupid cow.”

**CG:** {disapproving} “Sir...”

**Q:** “Nothing stays simple with Bond, you idiot. That is why I have left very specific instructions _to be called in..._ Tell me what you’ve done.”

**CG:** “Done, sir?”

**Q:** “Yes, done. Have you sent in support? An extraction team would probably be premature, but I wouldn’t fault you...” 

**Q:** “You’ve done nothing, have you? This is almost _ten minutes old.”_

**Q: “** Give me the God damned mic.”

**Q:** “Out, all of you. Give me the fucking room!”

{Shuffling footsteps}

**Q: “** 007?” 

**Q: “** I know you can’t talk, so don’t try. I will need you to give me a cough, though, or I’m sending in a team right now.”

**007:** {A cough, quickly followed by uncontrolled coughing}

{Background cadence of blows stops} _Are you choking, boy?_

**Q:** _“Boy?_ Really?”

**Q:** “Ask for some water, 007—and take your time drinking it.”

{Coughing continues}

**007:** “...Water?”

_What’s that, boy?_

**Q:** “Keep it courteous, Bond. I think we can all agree you’re in it deep enough already.”

**007:** “Please... {coughing} water, ma’am?

**Q:** “This is going to be tricky, but I need to figure out what’s going on so I can help you.”

**007:** {Laugh buried in cough}

**Q:** “Hush. Are you blown?”

**007:** {low, barely decipherable under coughing} “Not yet.”

**Q:** “Can you complete the mission?”

**Q:** “Take another sip and answer into the glass before she takes it away, the mic will pick it up.”

**007:** “Can’t _complete_ anything. How the bloody hell... _torture_ doesn’t get me hard, Q, it gets me pissed.”

**Q:** “Right... right. What the fuck were they thinking sending you on...”

{Blows resume: ~1/30s)

**Q:** “She’s testing you, they told you that much, right? Did they tell you that you were supposed to be a good little masochist before they sent you in? All saleable to the strategically right sadists?” 

**Q:** “Don’t answer that. I can see right here you didn’t get you your briefing until you were already embedded. I should pull the fucking plug on this mission right now.”

**007:** {Coughs loudly, once.}

**Q:** “Too bad you're not the right kind of masochist for this, because you certainly qualify in the abstract... What a clusterfuck.”

**Q:** “Not helping, I know.”

**Q:** “Pain’s never done it for you then? Not at all?”

**007:** {cough}

**Q:** “Of course not. Too much, too mortally terrifying. No sexy-fun-play pain for agent oh-look-I-didn’t-really-die-I-just-wish-I-had- _again_.” 

**Q:** “Honestly, though, your AMRs are rather shockingly vanilla, all things considered...”

**007:** {Very loudly coughed:} **“Q!”**

**Q:** “Right.”

**Q:** “What about when you came back? You can’t tell me that rising from that icy bier of a lake didn’t mix the signals coursing through your blood. 

**Q:** Think back to that. Feel it now, the cold and that fiery sting that sinks into your skin—a thousand of the most welcome needles lancing your nerves. The mad rush of air into your lungs as you broke the surface. You’ve never felt more alive than in that moment, right? All that pain transmuted into the mind-bending rush of _surviving?_ Can you really tell me that isn’t the best thing you’ve ever felt?”

**Q:** “This isn’t that different.”

**Q:** “Feel it. _Use_ it. Let it tell you how alive you are. _Let it the fuck in.”_

**Q:** “One rush can become another, like to like, if you just call it out. Welcome it in. Breathe with the cadence. Let your muscles sing with the burn of each stroke.”

**Q:** “I want you to count them out for me, James. Just start at one, she won’t mind. I want to hear the sting of each thread in your voice, to hear the rush of each stroke run through you like a wildfire you can barely contain, a rush you can barely stand.” 

**007:** “ONE.”

**Q:** “That’s it, James. It’s power and energy and _life,_ all crawling under your skin.”

**007:** “TWO”

{Overlapping background} _“Yeah, count for me, boy.”_

**Q:** “Just let it flow... How can you possibly _help_ but get it mixed up?”

**007:** “THREE”

{Overlapping background} “ _I knew we just had to get you going.”_

**Q:** “Don’t listen to her. Listen to me. Focus on me.”

**007:** “FOUR”

{Overlapping background} “ _Such a slut for it, there you go...”_

**Q:** “Follow the rush, James. Follow it for me, feel it coursing through you.”

**007:** “FIVE”

{Overlapping background} “ _Yeah...that’s it, nice and hard now, aren’t you?”_

**007:** “SHUT UP, you cunt...”

**Q:** “Sush... Close your eyes, James, and don’t breathe, just count and let it overwhelm you...”

{Inarticulate shriek, whip cracks escalate}

**007:** “SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN”

**Q:** “{Overlapping} Stop counting! Just ride it, James, ride the rush and her anger right over the edge... know that it will piss her _the fuck off_ but it will make me so very, very...”

**007:** {Roars at volume}

**Q:** “That’s it.”

**Q:** {Clears throat} “Let it take you down... She’ll stop soon...Ride it out and down. Down and through...”

{Blows stop}

_You’ll do, Boy._

**Q:** “There, you did it. You’re done...” 

{Overlapping background} _With a look like yours, you’d only bring disappointment if you were too easy, anyway._ {Laughs}

**Q:** “Always so damn good at your job. Just breathe... Can you count your breaths for me, 007? Count them silently, make them long and even...”

{Overlapping background} _Pack him up, boys—he’s shipping out tonight. Mularney’s going want this one right away._

**Q:** “Keep counting, every breath, follow it in and out.”

**Q:** “I’ll have an exfil plan in place by the time you’re wherever you land.”

**007:** {Weak cough}

**Q:** “You’ve done it, James. Didn’t you hear? They’re shipping you straight to him. We can get you and him in one swoop.” 

**Q:** “Let them bundle you off. Just focus on me; listen to my voice and breathe...”

**007:** {Quiet} “Enough.”

**Q: “** Sorry. Habit. I’m staying with you though, at least until you’re in the air.”

{Shuffling, clanking... shod and bare footsteps for ~220s}

**007:** {quiet sigh}

**007: “** Q?”

**Q: “** Yes?” 

**007:** {Almost inaudible} “Thank you.”

////END RED-FLAGGED PORTION\\\\\\\

////END TRANSCRIPT\\\\\\\

////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Christ.

I remember most of that but it’s muted. There’s nothing after until I woke in London, hooked up to fewer tubes and wires than normal but strapped down more than they usually bother.

I think the bastards must’ve drugged me, Q.

Did those imbeciles in psych flag this because I managed to keep my bloody cover? Because that was months before we'd even done anything for them to disapprove _of_. 

Are you in trouble? 

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Do you even know how to read, Bond? 

Did you miss the part where I said the report was “tragically lost”? Things don’t dig themselves back out after I’ve put them in the ground, James. I leave that to your super villains.

No, I am emphatically not in trouble, and neither are you.

What _I_ am is... intrigued by possibilities. Possibilities better explored when we’re in the same damn time zone again.

What _you_ have, James, is a rather alarming tendency to stumble into the kind of circumstance where those possibilities could be a vulnerable blind spot. So, you understand why I daren’t wait for a more intimate time to bring it up. 

Watch your backside—at least until I’m around to do it for you. (Such a chore!)

~ Q

////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Why, Q, I do believe you’ve made me blush.

Though could be simply that it’s ten-below _in my room._

(As if I needed more reasons to hurry home.)

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------


	8. Chapter 8

It’s been a doozy of a day, and a certain 00 leaping rooftop to rooftop *in heavy ice* Did. Not. Help.

Your turn to tell me something that matters. Make it a good one.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Since it’s almost Christmas, I hope you’ll forgive my melancholia. It’s endemic here in the arse-end of beyond. 

You’ve seen pictures of Skyfall, right? Even if you haven’t, you know what a moor looks like: lots of grass and mist and broody atmosphere, but not a lot of trees. It almost reminds me of up here. Not really desolate, not if you know how to look, but that’s easy to forget. 

Anyway, you can understand why I was so excited when my father suggested we go and get a tree. It was my third or fourth Christmas.

It was snowing when we all piled into Kincade’s truck, that feathery kind of powder that dusts everything and seems to hang in the air forever. As we left the moor and started to climb, it got thicker on the ground. We didn’t see another soul on the road we wound along, and for a long while, I couldn’t see anything at all but white. Eventually, we twisted back beside the rushing creek, and there they were—trees, tall, green and lush, spreading all along the far shore.

I know now that it was only a half-mile, but seemed to take forever, that day, to reach the bridge. When we finally stopped, I couldn't wait for my mother to get out. I bounded out over her and landed in waist-deep (to me) powder. I remember her laughing as I righted myself and ran for the trees.

The wind was much lighter within the forest, and the ground beneath my feet was crunchy with old snow. I spun in circles until I fell, delighted by all the swirling green above me. They trailed behind me, hands clasped together, and I called my choices back to them, each denied until, finally, I pointed at a tree only four or five times my height.

My father went somber as he approached me and the tree. He explained that, since we were inviting this tree home, we needed to be sure it was the right one. Was I absolutely sure? My mother’s happy nod confirmed things for us both.

Then, or so Kincade’s told me many times since, they spent the next fifteen minutes explaining to their absolutely inconsolable child why it was necessary to _cut the bloody tree down_ to take it home with us.

I must have gotten over the trauma though. I remember dragging my blankets out beneath those green boughs and twinkling lights for what seemed like forever.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

You’ve resolved me. I never bother with a tree, but I’m going for one tomorrow. 

Maybe I’ll get one of those potted ones. Your balcony looks like it could use the company of a tree.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

In solidarity, I’ve strung fairy lights around my window here, but it’s not the same. I miss the green. 

I would have grabbed green lights, but everything in the canteen was purple. Now, when I kill the main lights, everything here—my bed, the curtains, my shirt, the table—is purple. It’s much better than the white, even if I do feel like I’m Christmasing in an Eighties bordello.

I’m thinking of you a lot, Q. Are you headed home to family for the holiday?

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

I’ll be lucky to make it back to bed at all tonight. Weapons smugglers are notably light on the Christmas cheer.

Honestly, it’s been years since I’ve even tried to go home.

No, my night will go something like this: 

I’ll stumble out of here later than I need to and order Indian take-away from the train. Erratum will meet me at the door, all purrs, and I’ll eye him suspiciously then go and clean up the dirt he’s spread across your Italian marble floor from the tree’s pot (again). If I’m very lucky, I will foil his inevitable escape attempt while I’m signing for my curry and not end up chasing him up and down the hall (again. I think he rather enjoyed his previous vagrant lifestyle). He’ll pout about spoiled plans and dashed dreams while I dish out my meal. I’ll relent and open a can of albacore for him because it’s Christmas, and because I’m an easy target for feline terrorism, especially when the arbitrary objects being knocked off shelves are not mine, and I cannot lock the terrorist in question outside.

Then I’ll fall asleep on your ridiculously expensive suede couch and he will deign to curl up at my neck and burp tuna burps in my face. We’ll move to your empty bed at some point, or I’ll wake needing traction.

Erratum will probably vomit his tuna on your pillow, and I’ll have to leave it there because I won’t notice it enough before I get called in again sometime before dawn.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Cat vomit should not make me laugh this hard. 

I woke to burst pipes in my bath this Christmas morning, and it’s so cold in here, I don’t even have to clean anything up before I leave for my shift. Not that I can see it with the power out again, anyway. Suffice to say, I’m happy for the distraction. 

Was it every bit as bad as you predicted?

-J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Worse. What I can’t figure out is where all the _feathers_ came from.

Happy Christmas, James. I miss you.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

I miss you, too. I can’t wait until this bloody assignment is over, so I can show you how much. Weather like this gives a man time to _think._

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

We shut down the last of the ‘Terrible Three’ yesterday. Seems they thought I was a bloody field agent. They got my name off a budget sheet and missed that I was the one doing the _ordering._ Thankfully, I suppose.

We’re tracking the leak, but it appears to have come from the House of Commons. I don’t have details because M kicked me out just after 8, and I have, very manfully, resisted the urge to check on the cleanup. His glare when he said he didn’t want to see me for at least 72 hours was actually rather intimidating (I think Eve’s been helping him practice in front of a mirror), so I haven’t even been in today.

I slept almost 10 hours, but I’m still completely knackered—you wouldn’t believe what the flat market’s like right now. I looked at _eight_ places in ten hours, and each one was worse than the last. So much for a Friday off.

I’ve cancelled my plans to do anything but abuse your endless hot water heater until Monday. 

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Abuse away. That instant-on is one of my favorite indulgences—someone should get some use out of it.

I knew you’d find the bastards, but I’ll admit relief (especially that they didn’t figure out who you really are). 

Why are you even hunting a place now, Q? I’ll be gone months yet and, to be honest, I think I’d rather like it if you were still there when I get home. After, even.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

I... yes. All right.

Though I may have to buy you a new chair. Erratum can smell you, but he can’t _find_ you, and he’s taking it out on that green leather monstrosity you love to read in.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------


	9. Chapter 9

Did Mularney escape, or did he make a deal for his release?

I just ran into the bastard at the market. He’s the bloody foreman I haven’t seen all season. If he’s their idea of a manager, we’ve profiled this company all wrong.

The man invited me to _dinner_ , Q. He said he likes to get to know each of his employees over the course of the shut-in season. I don’t think he recognized me (why would he?), but there’s something queer about it all. He kept touching my arm and putting food that I _“just had to try”_ in my basket.

I know I’m not giving you much lead, but I’ll take whatever information you can get me; I’m to be at his by 6.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Damnit, James! 

I didn’t get this until just now, and it’s half-six your time. Please tell me you didn’t go. You’ve got to start listening to your instincts. You don’t have to run toward _every_ trouble.

You went. Of course you went. It’s what you do.

I’ll dig up what I can. Please know that if I’d had any idea he was free, I would have told you. 

And please be safe. _My_ instincts say this mission is heading right off the rails. 

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERY PENDING...\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Get out, 007. 

This is official: ABORT. Go to ground and await exfil. 

There is no way Mularney doesn’t know you.

Dowar, that fucking parliamentary cunt, let him go. He wasn’t in custody a week, and it gets worse, I’m afraid.

She had the report on your fucking mission redacted, then buried it and filed a decoy. I didn’t know to look, so I didn’t find the damn thing until just now. 

If I’d known she was involved... Fuck. I _knew_ she was involved, I just missed that she was _involved._

He had you for three days, James. More than three days, and I thought you were confined in some fucking remote medical. You were right about the drugs; you don’t remember any of it because they hit you with high-dose Flunitrazepam—bloody Rohypnol. I can’t even get the details because it’s in fucking _paper_ copy only, and that’s been run through with marker.

_Fuck._

You had better be reading this, James, or the head-rolling will not be metaphorical. 

I’ll give you three hours, and then... _I will figure something out_.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERY PENDING...\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

` **EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM ACTIVATION** `

`THIS IS NOT A TEST`

`THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A SEVERE WINTER STORM ADVISORY FOR THE BERING SEA... CHUKCHI SEA... AND ALL COASTAL AREAS. `

`BLIZZARD CONDITION WARNING... SUDDEN WHITE-OUTS, STORM FORCE WINDS, AND HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY POSSIBLE... WILDLY ERRATIC CONDITIONS EXPECTED UNTIL 007:00 UST TOMORROW... SEEK SAFE HARBOR OR SHELTER IN PLACE. `

`THIS ADVISORY BROADCAST AS OVERRIDE TO ALL SYSTEMS CAPABLE OF RECEIPT COURTESY OF MEASURE Q FUNDING. `

\-----------------------

 

I had hoped my little NWS warning would buy you some time, but I’m guessing Mularney had already made his move.

It doesn’t matter, you’ll need this information when you get away, and if we rescue you first, it can amuse you later.

A message backing the weather advisory off will come in the morning, stating it missed your position. That’s hardly uncommon where you are, so it shouldn’t raise any flags. At least in the meantime he can’t move you.

Getting to you will take time, I’m afraid, but help is on the way.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERY PENDING...\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

We’re getting close.

I’m trying to distract myself by improving the internal Wi-fi signal in this damn titanium shell, and all I can wonder is _how did the submariners stand the smell?_ The boat’s running with less than a third of its intended complement, and all I can smell is _people_. Well, that and diesel from the conventional engines.

You have... interesting friends, James.

Thankfully.

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERY PENDING...\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------


	10. Chapter 10

Are you terribly angry with me, James? Should I have let the medics handle it?

It’s been a week now since you disappeared off your rescue ship into the Bering Sea. I’ve been back in London six days myself, and I’ve yet to make it home. Maybe I just don’t want to.

They’re talking about listing you as dead. 

Again. 

James, I don’t care how many times you need to fuck her to shake the damn mission; just tell me where you’ve gone to ground so I can come fuck her too. 

_Please?_

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

When you laid your hand on the back of my neck, Q, ten-thousand points converged to one under your fingers. I’d forgotten me, but there I was, in the palm of your hand.

I didn’t feel the restraints go, but I felt your hands circling my wrists, soothing after. I couldn’t see you, couldn’t hear your voice, but I felt your lips pressing words into my neck. I wanted to cry out, to breathe you in, but I couldn’t. I started to panic. I remembered the mask only when it blocked the heat of your hands. I felt your face through it, pressing against mine. My panic calmed, and things started coming back.

_Mularney went queer after your weather alert. He’d looked over his dessert at me and said, “Not the time for games then.” The regret in his eyes made me want to shudder. To his men, he added, “Take him to cold storage,” and I was led off.  
_  
With nothing else to focus on, my mind rode with your hands as they mapped my body. Like that day in your office, you were _everywhere,_ firm pressure trailing warmth and sparking life along my skin. Like that day in your office, I couldn’t get enough. I tried to follow, to get closer, but it only set me rocking, and I bucked wildly, panic closing in again. Your arms wrapped around me from behind, and you pressed more soundless words into my neck, and I calmed again.

_I didn’t just let them lead me off, of course. I bade my time until we were outside and took down the first two before they’d noticed me move. Number three quickly followed his friends down but number four? Four backed off a few feet and asked calmly where I’d like to be shot. He was friendly as he advised that it didn’t matter much to him, but it was going to have to be somewhere debilitating, or we’d be missing the point. About then his friends arrived. I declined Four’s services and went with them._

Occasionally, your hands would pause. After a moment, I’d feel cool air on newly exposed skin, then your hands would slide in and rub gently, waking the blood beneath. Loosening straps, I assume, but at the time it was a mysterious counterpoint to the slow, firm glide of your fingers. Gradually, the pauses stopped. You rubbed my arms in long pulling motions, dragging blood back into my fingers. You did the same with my calves, sending the blood rushing back to my ankles and toes.

I could almost hear myself groan when you kissed the arch of my foot.

_Mularney had called it ‘cold storage’ when he ordered it up for me; as descriptions go, it wasn’t far off. Four and his reinforcements marched me to the generator shed. Inside, the noise level was almost intolerable, and the men had to communicate with gestures. A door at the back led to a long hall with many other doors, like an urban storage unit, but for people. Four and his gun stayed back while his flunkies led me inside one of the units. I declined their assistance in stripping. I let them secure in me the sling._

You kissed your way up my leg, open-mouthed and hungry. My thoughts made a feeble effort to coalesce— _Security? Discretion?_ —but I couldn’t hold them through the persistent haze of the drugs. You soothed me again, firm pressure in a long slide along my flank. I remembered again that this was _you_ and stopped grasping for the details. 

_Sheer bloody-minded instinct made me try to avoid the needle, but I barely slowed them down. The mask came next and I did slow them there, but it was only a matter of moments before the drugs started to take hold, and I became disorganized and compliant. Obediently, I held my breath while they sprayed an expanding gel in my nose. I opened my mouth for the gag and held still while they sealed it, too, staying still even after it cut my air off completely. After an endless moment, I felt a cool pressure coming from the gag and struggled to learn how to breathe through my mouth without opening it._

Your touch was like fire. Its warmth lingered long after you’d moved on, creating the illusion that you were everywhere and nowhere at once. I swam in it, buoyed by the drugs

_I don’t even know when Four and his thugs left._

You swallowed me whole. The sensation was too much. I arched in the sling, fire racing up my spine, throwing sparks from every surface that was mine. Me. I thrashed and you let me. Your mouth rode me as I rocked and bucked, maintaining perfect suction as you drove me mercilessly forward with your tongue. It was endless and instant, the universe sucking in a breath, before I exploded in your mouth.

_The mask stopped light completely. I could smell nothing through my blocked nose. My tongue was numb from something in the gas, so I couldn’t even taste plastic and foam in my mouth. The massive roar of the generator filled my ears until it grew so overwhelming, it disappeared. The booming of my heart a was a counter-echo until the drugs slowed it down, and I lost it, too._

I was still floating back down when you pulled the mask off. Your hands shielded my eyes, but the dim light creeping in under the door jamb was still painfully bright. You kissed my eyes shut, and I kept them that way. My stomach lurched as my center of gravity fell, and I flinched when my back connected with something soft. The straps of the sling landed on my stomach and legs but you moved them quickly away, disconnecting them and rubbing life back into the places where they’d been supporting me.

The sixth time I peeked through my eyelids, I could make out your silhouette. I reached up to tug at the gag, suddenly desperate to talk to you, but you caught my hands and shook your head gently no. Through the fog, I thought _airway_ , then realized you were mouthing that very same word. I wondered if my deafness was permanent. I don’t know why, but you chose that moment to smile at me, and that’s the last thing I remember before waking in a bloody sterile med bay.

_Touch was the last to go, and after that I simply floated._

_I floated, and I waited for you, Q._

So, no, Q. I’m not angry. Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll ever manage to be angry with you again (though we will talk about your propensity for fieldwork), but I did need a little time.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Did?

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Did.

Check your bloody financials, Q.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

I’ve... been ordering a lot of Chinese takeaway this week?

With the new credit card I left _on your desk at home!_

~ Q  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------

 

Come home, Q.

\- J  
////OMEGACRYPT STATUS: MESSAGE DELIVERED SECURELY\\\\\\\  
\------------------------------


	11. Epilogue

James padded onto the terrace, bare feet silent on the cool stone. Dawn’s light was brightening to day behind him, spreading across the clear Aegean waters and taking them from dusty teal to sparkling turquoise. 

James didn’t stop to take in the sight. Had there been men rappelling down from the roof above, he would have dealt with them after he’d dealt with Q. His posture would have given this away to Q immediately, had Q not been busy nibbling his toast and pretending not to know James was behind him.

As such, Q didn’t jump when the folded newspaper landed in his eggs.

> `_ATHENS, Greece (AP)._ British MP Clair Dowar was found dead in her cliff-top villa Thursday evening. MP Dowar was the apparent victim of a freak electrical storm according to local authorities. “It’s like the lightning just crawled right out of her computer and consumed her,” stated one obviously perplexed detective who wished to remain uncredited. British authorities arrived quickly to take control of the scene and have declined official comment, stating only that the investigation is “in progress.” `
> 
> `Witnesses watched through an open window as the MP’s still-smoking desk was boxed up. Several anonymous sources indicate that the surviving papers on the MP’s desk implicated her in the notorious “Terrible Three” incidents in London last fall. So far, there has been no official confirmation of the MP’s involvement in those crimes.`

Correctly assuming Q already knew what the article said, James didn’t give him time to read it. “Why did you let me bring you to Greece, Q?” James’ voice was _very_ level.

“What? And deny you the chance to _‘show me the glorious waters of the Aegean’_?” Q asked politely, finally looking up at James’ face but still utterly refusing to acknowledge the fury banked there.

James actually growled, then dropped his eyes and folded bonelessly into the other chair when Q didn’t react to _that_ either. Bond muttered, “You bloody well _know_ why I wanted to come to Greece.” His tone was thick with frustration, but his anger had bled out into the dawn.

Q’s own was still very much intact. He reached across the table. A gentle finger on the chin was all it took to guide James’ eyes back up to meet his own. “Did you really think...?” Q asked, then shook his head.

More to himself than to James, Q continued, “Of course you didn’t. How would anyone ever find out? More to the point, why would anyone ever care.” 

Q released James’ eyes, but James’ eyes didn’t release him, watching intently as Q leaned over and pulled a gray file from his satchel. Their eyes caught tight again as Q placed the slim folder in front of James.

“ ** _I care,_** ” Q said, his voice iron. 

James didn’t look down at the file for a long moment. He watched Q’s face, taking in the not-so-banked fury there and realizing it was not aimed at him at all, but aimed _for_ him. _Because of him._

Bond’s eyes flicked down to the newspaper in Q’s congealing eggs, and Q was smiling when he looked back up. _...do I tell you how much higher my body count is than yours? Because it is undeniably so..._ Bond suppressed a shudder that was equal parts delicious fear and... something a great deal more complicated.

Still smiling that wonderful, terrifying smile, Q continued, “Moreover, I am not the only one,” and jut his chin toward the file under James’ palm. James surged up across the table to capture Q in a searing kiss. It was a long moment later when he opened the file.

Inside was an envelope, posted years ago. James recognized the controlled loops and curves of M’s handwriting even before he took in the addressee. His hands did not shake as he slid the letter out, but his breath quickened.

> _Ms. Dowar,_
> 
> _On Tuesday last, I had the occasion to lunch with the PM at your hotel in London. Focused as you were on the affair at hand, you did not notice us. I, however, noticed both of you._
> 
> _Let me be absolutely clear: This will stop, Ms. Dowar, immediately and permanently. I will not have my agents harassed or molested, and I assure you that this ‘relationship’ qualifies as both. He does not enjoy your sadistic games. I say this with certainty; I interviewed the hotel staff that cut him free that day myself._
> 
> _My agent has no feelings for you unless his apathy has risen to the level of disgust. He tolerates you only because of your position, a position you will not continue to enjoy if your abuse of it does not cease at once._
> 
> _Please rest assured that there is nothing idle in my threat._
> 
> _Most Sincerely,  
>  M_

James didn’t notice him do it, but Q had come round the table to squat beside him. Carefully, James refolded the letter and placed it back in the envelope. Steadying himself with a hand on James’ thigh, Q took it from him and placed it back in the folder. James tracked the motion with his whole head.

“God, I miss her,” James whispered, bringing his forehead down to meet Q’s.

“I know,” Q whispered back.

“Why didn’t she tell me about this?”

Q snorted. “I much prefer that she didn’t.” James squinted at him, his expression caught somewhere between a glare and utter bafflement. 

Q couldn’t resist his urge to laugh. The sound carried, solid and a bit wild, splitting the morning light and bringing them both back firmly to the present.

“She was supposed to tell you she had your back, 007?” Q’s smile was tolerant, his tone indulgent—though it was hard to tell if it was Bond or M he was indulging. “Whyever would she have done that? So you could shake her off like water from a big, wet dog?”

James smiled at the truth of that, but watched Q closely until Q pulled him in for a kiss. When they broke, Q continued, smile spilling into his voice as warm as the sun, “You are a dog, you know. Hers— ** _mine_** —fortunately, I can afford to let you know whatever I want.” Q’s smile went to from solar to supernova, “I have much better trackers than your local vet, and I’ve never been afraid to use them.”

James began to pat himself down, turning this way and that to examine his skin for new marks. Q looked past him, out to all that beckoning blue.

Q leaned into James and whispered almost silently, right into his ear, “You’ll never find it, James. _No one_ will. **Ever**.” Q’s voice held threat and promise in equal measure. An oath... a vow.

Standing smoothly, Q surveyed the horizon. Brightly, he asked, “How about a sail?” and held his hand out to James. “Someone promised to show me the Aegean, I believe.” 

James took Q’s hand in his own, and he stood.

~fin~


End file.
